The Room Beyond

by Stephanie Elmas

  ‘If only it were that simple,’ she replied. ‘If only it were that simple.’

  It was nearly evening by the time she made it home from Mr Fairclough’s office. A familiar figure was standing in the doorway of number 36. She’d already spotted him from some way off; he was wearing vivid purple today.

  ‘I heard about your husband,’ said Walter Balanchine with a solemn face.

  The windows of Lucinda Eden’s house were open; the sashes had been freshly painted.

  ‘The house looks as good as new.’

  ‘Lord Hartreve has given it to his nephew’s family. We’ve done our best with it, it was in a deplorable state.’

  ‘Mrs Eden went to France. I think I can tell you that now.

  His eyes looked dull and sad. He nodded. ‘Yes I know, I followed you to Dover that night. I had men tracking her across the Channel but her husband was too canny for all of us. They kept moving on and on until we finally found her in Leipzig.’

  ‘What condition was she in? Well I hope?’

  He shook his head this time. ‘They found her in her grave. She’s dead.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘She died the same night as your husband. Isn’t that strange?’

  Miranda crept rather than walked back into her house, her gloved hands clutched at the base of her stomach. The hallway seemed to have got larger for some reason and the natural daylight just wasn’t getting to it, even when she did leave all the doorways to the rooms open.

  ‘I’m back now,’ she murmured into the still air and a shadow swept across the floor, making it even darker.

  ‘Home again.’

  SERENA’S STORY

  I woke to a pitch-black room. The Manor was quiet, the hallways empty. Downstairs the lamps had been turned down low and nothing was stirring in the drawing room apart from the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. But a bit further along, just past the dining room, the low murmur of voices wafted towards me. A pool of light flooded out from beneath the kitchen door. I pushed it open.

  ‘Hello! How’s your headache?’ asked Raphael. His eyebrows were raised in interest but his face was unfathomable. They were all playing cards around the hefty kitchen table.

  ‘Oh... much better I think. Is Beth alright?’

  I directed the question at Eva, but her eyes twitched instantly away.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Raphael answered. ‘We put her to bed a while ago. Wild with excitement about tomorrow of course. Hey, are you going to come with us to Midnight Mass? Mum’s staying behind so you don’t need to babysit.’

  ‘Really? Alright then.’

  Arabella was gazing glassy-eyed at me from across her cards, Edward scratched his nose thoughtfully and played his hand.

  It’s a funny feeling, only the mildest tingling up the spine. But sometimes you simply know when a group of people have just been talking about you behind your back.

  Venturing out into the night we were all so bundled up in coats and hats and scarves that it felt as if I’d been incorporated into a gang of thieves. The black air tasted of hay and wood smoke and I stuck close to the crowd, just in case Raphael tried to approach me again. But he didn’t seem that interested in coming near me, pacing on ahead instead, entrenched in black. You’d hardly even know that he was there.

  The fuzzy whiteness of the lodge cottage gradually came into view. I couldn’t keep my eyes off it. As we passed it by I brushed my hand against the old stone walls. They left a dry chalky residue on my fingertips. The cottage fell behind us and a moment later the church door sucked us in.

  The church was almost full and our party had to split up to find seats. There was just enough space for one person to squeeze in right at the back and I grabbed it. The priest looked even colder than the rest of us: he had a number of scarves wrapped tightly about him and a bright red nose which he mopped with a yellow-looking handkerchief.

  ‘Good evening everyone and a very Happy Christmas to you all’, he began, wiping his nose again solemnly. ‘Before we begin our midnight service there is something very sad that I am compelled to draw your attention to. As many of you know, the painting of Jesus feeding the five thousand on the east side of the nave has been a beautiful and constant part of our St. Mary’s life for more than three hundred years. Unfortunately, only two days ago, it went missing.’

  A unified gasp travelled across the congregation. Heads turned and necks craned to catch glimpses of the empty patch of wall.

  ‘Yes, I can see the shock in your faces. It is a very sad thing. Very sad indeed. If anyone knows anything regarding the whereabouts of this precious object, then please do not hesitate to speak to me about it, in confidence, at any time. Right, let us move on and remember that this is Christmas: the glorious celebration of the birth of Christ. Please turn to page number 34 in your hymn books for Hark the Herald Angels Sing.’

  Standing almost right at the front of the congregation, and next to Eva, I could just about see the back of Raphael’s head, bobbing from side to side with the force of his singing. A sickening feeling rose up from my stomach - I was already itching to get out and by the time the closing notes of the hymn had faded away, I was back in the night air, on my own.

  The walls of Miranda White’s house were old but solid. It was a charming little place, almost Hansel and Gretel like, with wooden gables and oversized chimneys. Who had this woman who once lived there been; a servant maybe to the Hartreve family?

  Scrambling around the cottage in the darkness wasn’t easy and the back walls were heavily overgrown with nettles and brambles. But I just managed to cling on with the tips of my fingers to the edge of one of the window frames at the back, pulling myself across.

  The windows themselves were clear and the faint glow of the church just hinted through from the bay at the front, bathing the entire interior with dappled light. All the internal doors must have been left open although, as far I could make out, there didn’t seem to be any doors hanging from the frames at all.

  There was nothing else in there, just the faint outline of the wooden carving I’d seen earlier in the day.

  The sound of singing piped up again from inside the church:

  ‘In the bleak midwinter...’

  Yes it was rather bleak, and cold. And if I stayed out any longer my nose was in danger of turning as red as the priest’s.

  ‘Oh it’s just you Serena.’

  Arabella was hovering in the hallway when I tried my best to slip back in through the Manor’s vast, creaking doors. Her voice seemed flat, quite sapped of its usual chirpiness, and for the first time I noticed that there were cracked lines around her lips. Her lipstick had bled into them and the rest of her make-up looked caked and old.

  ‘Yes, just me! Are you alright?’

  ‘Oh fine.’ And then she smiled sadly. ‘This house doesn’t agree with me I think. Too many chills... and troubles.’

  Her eyes looked moist, she wobbled a little as if she’d been drinking.

  ‘Try and get some sleep. It’s gone midnight now and we’re supposed to forget about troubles on Christmas Day.’

  ‘Really?’ She tilted her head towards me appealingly; uncannily similar to Beth.

  ‘This family of mine,’ she chuckled at last and walked away as if I’d disappeared from sight.

  The next morning a large thud at the end of my bed prized me out of sleep. It was accompanied by a:

  ‘Gloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooria! Hosanna in excelsis!’

  ‘What are you wearing?’

  Beth looked twice her usual size, wrapped up in every dress, jumper and cardigan from her suitcase as well as tights, leggings and a shawl of Arabella’s which she’d tied sari-style about her on top of everything else.

  ‘The heating’s given up in my bedroom. I nearly went blue. Hey, it’s Christmas! Now who does this look like? “Ding Dong Merrily on High...”’ She sang it in a way that made her eyes bulge and her neck look as if it was trying to eat her chin.

  ‘Very naughty!�
�� I laughed.

  ‘But it’s just like Uncle Rupert isn’t it? Go on, say it is.’

  ‘Yes, you’re very clever. But don’t do that in front of anyone else. Shall we go and see what Father Christmas has brought for you?’

  Present unwrapping was accompanied by a chaotic breakfast fry-up.

  ‘Attention all! Who’s for sunny side up and who’s for easy over?’ yelled Fiona from the kitchen.

  ‘Isn’t it over easy Mummy?’ Estella laughed. She was pulling on a new furry hat from Eva. ‘Oooh lovely, I’m not taking this one off today.’

  Everyone dashed about with tousled hair, kissing and thanking each other. All apart from Arabella, who remained slouched in a chair wrapped up in a kimono and hugging an untouched mug of coffee to her chest. She looked dazed and hung-over.

  ‘A present for you,’ said Raphael, handing me a bottle shaped gift, wrapped up in red paper.

  ‘Thank you. I always like receiving books at Christmas.’

  ‘Oh I’m glad. Just make sure you don’t get drunk when you’re reading this one.’

  He clasped his hands behind his back as if to reassure me that he wasn’t coming any closer.

  ‘Sorry about the other day, I was wrong to force you like that.’

  He was the young man in the black and white photograph again: charming and rather captivating. Not the man on the motorbike, or the one who’d chased after me the day before.

  ‘OK. But don’t do it again.’

  ‘Breakfast is served!’ announced Edward, striding in in his brand new apron. It had a picture printed on the front of it of a turkey sunbathing on a tropical island whilst balancing a cocktail in its wing; a present from Beth. ‘I don’t know why you’re all laughing at me! I think I look extremely handsome in this.’

  After breakfast the morning sunshine suddenly slunk away behind foreboding clouds. Droplets of rain began to spatter at the windows and the shadows loomed in.

  ‘Damn, the heating’s failed altogether now,’ said Rupert, marching in, hands frustratedly on hips. ‘Can’t make the bloody thing start up again.’

  ‘And how much will that cost us to fix?’ asked Arabella through tight lips.

  ‘Arabella,’ said Edward in a voice heavy with warning.

  Rupert pretended not to have heard. ‘I’ll get as many fires going as I can,’ he said, hurrying out again.

  As the morning wore on Arabella’s mood seemed to have become infectious. Before long Robert, Eva and Raphael were also sitting despondently in chairs, hugging layers of clothing around them.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked Beth.

  She was curled up under the Christmas tree, flicking through a new book she’d been given, tongue poking out to one side.

  ‘It’s my Christmas present from Pasha. He’s been trying to find this book in English for me for ages because I always liked the story so much when he told it to me.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘Papa Sasha and the Little Orphan Children. It’s about this man who helps all the poor children in Moscow. We think it’s a funny story because he’s got the same name as Pasha, I mean Sasha. Our Sasha!’

  ‘Is that why you started calling him Papa Sasha, Beth, because of this story?’

  ‘I think so. He liked me calling him that so much that he started giving me presents for it. So I carried on! And then the two words got mixed together into Pasha.’

  The door suddenly opened and we all looked up as Aunt Fiona wandered in with a worried expression on her face. ‘Looks like the oven’s on the blink too,’ she said quietly. ‘Anyone ever barbecued a turkey before?’

  For the first time in hours Arabella calmly rose to her feet, left the room and slammed the door violently behind her. After a few moments of stunned silence Raphael went too, followed by a more hesitant looking Edward, a pipe clutched between his teeth.

  ‘Shall we go and make some sandwiches?’ Estella asked Beth. ‘I think we could all do with a bite to eat.’

  ‘OK.’

  They left and I disappeared quietly from the room for a wander in a bid to keep warm.

  Great Christmas. Suddenly the dried up turkey and mindless television watching with Jessica felt heavenly. Once again I relived yesterday’s scene with Raphael; it came back to me like a dull tooth ache. I could still feel the imprint of his hands on me and those words that turned my bones even colder than they already were:

  You can see things Serena, things that you shouldn’t.

  I hugged myself, the air had gone stale. Where was I exactly? I’d been wandering through the corridors, too busy to pay much attention to which way I’d been going. The air had turned dim and even when a set of light switches turned up they did nothing when I flicked them on. Most of the light bulbs had blown or weren’t in the sockets at all.

  A door appeared to the right. Its brass handle felt cool and sticky; unpolished and unused. The door swung open and a brick wall stared back at me.

  A faint throbbing started in my ears. I turned back from where I came, trying to retrace my steps, but there were so many turnings and if anything it was getting even darker. I grappled with shaking hands along the walls for light switches. Nothing. Just darkness and damp old plaster walls, so soft that I could actually squash dents in them with my fingers.

  But then, in the distance, came the sound of voices. I shuffled in their direction and they got louder. It was a woman talking mostly, at great speed and almost shrieking at times. Closer still and I realized it was Arabella. The outline of another door floated towards me. I dived for its handle and a room appeared.

  ‘It’s fucking ridiculous! Those country bumpkins, screwing up the inheritance, that idiot son of theirs making a mess of it all. Raphael, you were born to run this place, why don’t you see that? You have the brains, the authority, the bearing. Why are you wasting your life? How you could have shown your face at that church last night... I just don’t know. ’

  She was yelling so hard at Edward and Raphael that they hadn’t even seen me enter. I’d come into a sort of double length drawing room that narrowed into an arch at the middle. They were right at the other end, Arabella thrashing her arms about with her back to me and the other two on either side of her. I turned to go but found myself hovering instead. Just the idea of having to return to that darkness, that dank maze...

  There was an old winged armchair just within reach. It was facing away from them, easy enough to curl up in and hide until it was all over.

  ‘Why don’t you just sit down Mum, calm yourself a little bit.’

  ‘I don’t want to sit down! I want to wring everyone’s bloody necks! I’ve worked so hard to bring Olly round, so hard, but all I get is that idiotic shrug of his! Everyone knows they’re fools, and parasites at that.’ She turned to Edward, her finger pointing challengingly at his chest. ‘When you got that Burnside money, risking EVERYTHING to get that man out of the country, then what did you all do with it?’

  ‘We stopped the house from falling down,’ murmured Edward in a deep voice.

  ‘Yes, for the next ten years or so, before another chunk of it starts to give way. What a stupid waste! DO something with the place, make some money! Turn it into a hotel, a museum, flatten it, I don’t know... or just bloody sell it and save us all one great big headache!’

  ‘This house is not ours to sell,’ he replied in long drawn-out words. ‘It belongs to the family, of which Olly will be head one day. Not Raphael. Druid Manor is part of our legacy and it will remain private.’

  ‘Well if that is the case then surely Raphael is the only one bright enough to pull it off. Just think of the sense of purpose it would give him. If only you could make a stand, for once in your life Edward!’

  ‘Stop trying to change things all the time, pushing your way around as if you were born into this family!’ Edward’s voice was getting louder now, brimming with frustration. ‘You’re too indiscreet, I’ve always warned you about that. Trying to change everything...’

 
‘Change can be for the better Edward and God knows this family needs a bit of freshening up.’

  ‘Freshening up? Is that what you call it? And does that extend to dragging all these strangers into our lives? What a success that’s been!’ he snarled. ‘It’s been bad enough having to tiptoe around that Russian for all these years but now you’ve brought this young woman in too!’

  ‘It wasn’t healthy for Beth to live in so much isolation.’

  ‘But Beth is not a healthy little girl, is she?’

  There was a cold pause. Strange, but I could feel them all shudder. My hands found their way across my mouth, but the tears had already sprung into my eyes.

  ‘Serena won’t last.’ Arabella’s voice was calmer now, more measured. ‘If we sack her she’ll make a fuss. She’s still too in love with him. Let her get tired, fed up with it all and just watch her closely in the meantime, stop things from getting out of hand. I’m sure that then she’ll just... melt away.’

  ‘Well let’s hope so!’ Edward bellowed back. ‘Let’s hope she’s not just like our frustrated academic, trying to sell us to the world. And have you seen the way he watches Eva now? Revolting!’

  ‘Raphael, please leave us.’

  ‘Yes Mum.’

  There were footsteps, the sound of a door creaking shut.

  ‘Why did I marry you?’ Arabella asked in a quavering voice.

  ‘I thought it might have been for love.’

  She laughed faintly. ‘If I’d known then what I know now...’

  ‘I warned you that there was a legacy.’

  ‘If only we could LEAVE Marguerite Avenue.’

  ‘Out of the question. It’s my home, it always has been, it’s part of our history, the people we are. And now it’s Beth’s home.’

  ‘It’s a prison.’

  ‘I... I simply don’t understand you Arabella. You were so happy there for so many years.’

  ‘Yes. Until I saw what I’d really let myself into. Until it started to destroy our children. Do you think they had a normal upbringing darling? Look at them all now, trying to escape into their funny little worlds, not living real lives at all. Raphael’s getting worse and worse.’